The 2017 Innovation Celebration highlights ground-breaking technology from MSU labs and startup companies from across Michigan State University's campus. Advanced automotive materials, electron microscopy, gene therapies and many more fascinating technologies are showcased, along with new startup companies.

Accelerating the creation and transfer of new technologies from research settings to practical real-world applications is the main focus of the innovation hubs at the University of Michigan’s College of Engineering and Michigan Technological University.

The Michigan Translational Research and Commercialization Program (MTRAC) Innovation Hub for AgBio at Michigan State University selected eleven awardees for grants focusing on key activities required to move technologies out of the lab and into marketable products or services.

Unlike simple sugars or even starches in the grains of plants, such as corn kernels, cellulose doesn’t dissolve in water. This is good for keeping plants healthy, but it's a problem for making biofuels.

Dr. Kyung-Hwan Han, a professor in MSU’s Department of Horticulture, has partnered with the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center to unlock the genetic regulators of cellulose biosynthesis in plants.
Han’s startup company, Kopess Biomass Solutions, was formed with assistance from the MSU Innovation Center; the company has optioned his discovery.

About 220 first-generation corn ethanol plants that produce fuel ethanol using starch operate in the United States. Ethanol production is expected to continue to grow over the next several years, since the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 required 36 billion gallons of renewable fuel use by 2022.